Sony originally owned the rights to use the Kingpin, since that character is most notably associated with Spider-Man. However, Fox bought out the rights so they could use him for Daredevil. Now that Daredevil is back at Marvel, did the Kingpin rights revert back to Sony, or does Marvel have them now?

Ari Avad has stated that the character rights fell under the Spider-man contract with Sony, and were loaned to FOX for use in the Daredevil movie. Greg Weisman, however, has stated that he was unable to use the Kingpin in the Spectacular Spider-man cartoon he produced with Sony because the rights were held by FOX at the time.

Kingpin may be another one of the "shared rights" entities, joining Pietro, Wanda and the Skrulls as characters that can be used by more than one company.